Boogerman: A Song History

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"Boogerman" belongs to the fiddling country where western North Carolina meets East Tennessee. The Traditional Tune Archive, drawing on Miles Krassen's Appalachian Fiddle (1973), calls it most common in North Carolina but known throughout the Appalachians, and it also travels as "Whip the Devil Around the Stump" and "Chasing the Devil Around a Stump."[1][2] The earliest recording in the sources consulted here was made in New York in 1924 by J.D. Harris of Flag Pond, Tennessee, close to the Madison County, N.C., line. He cut it for the Broadway label under the devil-chasing title, with Ernest Helton on banjo.[2][3][4] Harris shaped a generation of younger fiddlers in the area, among them Manco Sneed, Marcus Martin and the Helton brothers.[2][3]

Color photochrom of a shady road beside tall red rock cliffs along the French Broad River in North Carolina

Detroit Photographic Co., “Paint Rocks, on the French Broad, North Carolina,” photochrom, about 1902. Library of Congress. No known restrictions.

The first recording under the name "Boogerman" seems to date from October 24, 1925. That fall the collector Robert Winslow Gordon had pitched a tent in the mountains outside Asheville. There he recorded G.S. Robinson on wax cylinder; Robinson was a capable fiddler whom census records list as a motorman on the city's street railway.[4] Fiddlin' Bill Hensley (1873–1960) of Madison County, who called it "Old Boogerman," was recorded playing it in 1940.[1][4] The Tune Archive also names Samantha Bumgarner, Osey Helton, Manco Sneed and north Georgia fiddler Tommy Magness among the players who carried it.[1]

It is a fast AABB reel in standard tuning. The first part is in G major, and the second moves to E minor or E major.[1] Among revival recordings, Dirk Powell played it from Manco Sneed's repertoire on the Wandering Ramblers cassette (Marimac 9033).[1][4] "Boogerboo," popularized by Tommy Thompson of the Red Clay Ramblers, is a separate song with a different melody.[5] None of the sources consulted here explains where the tune's name comes from.

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Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Boogerman".
  2. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Whip the Devil around the Stump".
  3. Blue Ridge National Heritage Area: "J.D. Harris".
  4. Library of Congress, Folklife Today: "Caught My Ear: Robert Winslow Gordon & 'Boogerman'".
  5. The Fiddler's Companion (ibiblio): "Bons–Box".